I actually have no idea whether that’s true. I absolutely slept with Kyle as a “fuck you” to Matt, but I kept doing it because I enjoyed the thrill of it.
I decide not to tell him that.
“Who was it?” Matt asks. “Will it make me mad?”
“What doesn’t make you mad?” It slips out before I can stop it. I used to love to antagonize him.
But he just smiles, a little sadly. “That’s a good point.”
Jesus. I reach for my drink and take a long gulp.
“I don’t know,” I say as I put it back down. “I remember being out there, and kissing him, but I can’t see his face. But I remember Savvy interrupting us, and she looked kind of pissed.”
Matt’s eyebrows shoot up. “Pissed?”
“Yeah. She looked mad, and I think we must have left after that, because she said, Let’s go.”
“Must have been Colin,” Matt says.
“No, there’s no way,” I protest. “I didn’t really even like Colin, and I never would have made out with Savvy’s boyfriend.”
“He wasn’t really her boyfriend. They saw other people.”
“Still, I don’t think that I would have…” I trail off, considering. I make a face and shake my head. “He slept with my mom that night. Are you saying he made out with me, and then went back inside and started hitting on my mother?”
“Why not? You guys kind of look alike.” He laughs at the expression on my face. “There’s a solid chance he didn’t even know that Kathleen was your mom. The guy is dumb as a bag of rocks.”
“True.” I run a hand down my face. “I just can’t see it. Even if I was drunk. It had to be someone else.”
He reaches out, nudging my skirt up to put a hand on my knee. “It doesn’t matter,” he says gently.
I slap his hand away. “Of course it matters! It’s the first important thing I’ve remembered in years.”
“It’s not going to bring her back. Nothing will bring her back.” He puts his hand back and squeezes my knee. “I know that this whole podcast thing has been hard on you, but it’s almost over. And it doesn’t matter what that guy says. Whether Ben points the finger at you or me or Colin or Nina or whoever. He’s not the police.”
“It doesn’t matter what he says, but it matters to me who killed her. I want to know if it was me or you or Colin or Nina or my mom.”
“Your mom?”
“She was out that night! It could happen! Her alibi is Savvy’s boyfriend.”
He gives me a look that is both amused and a little pitying. I take another sip of my drink and consider whether I should do something about the fact that his hand has moved from my knee to my thigh.
I glance over at the wedding photo above the mantel. If I squint, it could be our wedding photo. If I squint, this whole house is mine again. This whole life is mine again. My pulse begins to race. A sick feeling rises up in my throat.
Matt leans forward and kisses me, and I kiss him back, despite the frantic beating of my heart. I want to knee him in the balls, but I force myself to sink into this for a moment. I need to be twenty-four again, in this house, feeling everything I felt the night that Savvy died. I don’t want to push it away anymore. If I can remember what it’s like to be that fucked-up twenty-four-year-old again, maybe I can remember everything.
He slides an arm around my waist, pulling me closer. I remember always feeling conflicted when Matt and I would have sex. Because on the one hand, I wanted to fucking murder him.
On the other hand, we always had really fantastic sex.
He pulls away to press his lips to my neck. “Stay here with me,” he murmurs against my skin. “Don’t go back to L.A.”
I say nothing, and maybe he takes my silence to mean I’m thinking about it, because he pulls back and looks at me seriously. An uncomfortable feeling unfurls in my gut.
“Or we can go somewhere else. Start over. Just the two of us.” He pushes my hair back, and then leaves his hand on my cheek. “I’ve missed you. What happened to us?”
“What happened to you? Lucy, what happened to you?”
The memory slams into me so suddenly that I reel back with a gasp.
Matt stood in front of me. Matt of five years ago, with longer hair and a horrified expression on his face. His eyes were bloodshot. He was drunk.
“Jesus, is that your blood?”
What did I say to him? I can’t see myself. I can only see him, and that look in his eyes.